News

Secrecy, Law and Society

By Greg Sherington

5 February 2014

Secrecy, Law and Society

This two-day workshop will examine how a 'culture of security' ushered in after 11 September 2001 has involved exceptional legal measures and increased recourse to secrecy on the basis of protecting public safety and national security.

However, secrecy is not confined to this development, and includes legacies of secrecy across a range of institutional and cultural settings.

With this in mind, this two day workshop will interrogate the legal as well as socio-legal dimensions of secrecy.

"More broadly, questions concerning secrecy involve the credibility of public and private institutions."

Workshop questions include:

Where is secrecy in the law and what justifies it? And how does the State keep its secrets in litigation?

What are the challenges posed to legal and constitutional principles, the rules of evidence, and 'traditional' mechanisms for dealing with sensitive information, such as public interest immunity? Might secrecy be remedied by human rights statutes and safeguards such as the use of special advocates?

What bearing does secrecy have on the media, press freedom and free speech?
What, if any, relationship exists between secrecy, a right to privacy and breach of coincidence?

What might be some of the institutional effects of secrecy developments upon security and law enforcement agencies?

How might legal and socio-legal perspectives help make sense of cultural, historic and institutionalised forms of secrecy?